Micro MESH Soft Touch Sanding Pads

This is the second set of these that I purchased. I used these after using sandpaper on my crusty grand piano pedals. After sanding the old patina down to smooth bare metal, I was able to use the sanding pads to get the metal to shine like new pedals. I was lucky that the piano had spend quality time in someone's home(s) so that there were no wear areas. Coupled with the polishing compound, one can see one's self in the reflections. These made the work easy. To address the "Ideas", the size is correct because they're easy to hold due to the amount of squish and the rounded corners. They are of excellent quality because even after the color fades, I can still use them for excellent results. The color coding makes it easy to progress to the next appropriately finer grit. The grits progress in such a way that, when used in order, all scratches disappear. "Smell?" Really? They don't smell like anything. They smell like air, and that is fine with me.

Durable and accurate sanding pads! Works best wet, minimal clogging. Grit size chart is a bit odd but the color coding helps. I added the number on the edge of each pad with perm ink for fast reference.

Great for polishing wood

My partner and I are making about 2-3 pens per day on average, and we use these pads on every one of them. They're durable, with a medium firm foam core, and sandpaper surfaces on both sides. We're really happy with the finished product on all types of materials, from acrylic to natural woods, and all the various burls, composites, and other manufactured materials in between. They also work fantastic on CA glue finishes. Acrylics come out so nice that you don't even need the final buffing compound. The 4 star rating is for 2 reasons. First, because it is very difficult to clean these pads. Even with wet sanding and dunking them to clean them after using them, they still retain most of the waste material. That's not a "fault" so much as a "useful lifetime" issue. Eventually they will become clogged up with waste material and it's difficult to clean them. How to get a 5-star rating in this regard is a mystery frankly, as it is completely natural for sandpaper to get clogged up. Maybe somebody much smarter than me can figure out the miracle cure some day. The second reason for 4 stars is that I would really like to see a sequence number printed on the pad itself, or some way to identify them when they get out of sequence WITHOUT the paper guide. Yes, they're colored for that purpose, but there are several VERY SIMILAR colors (and some people are color blind), and if you lose the color guide paper sheet, well good luck with that as the colors are seemingly random and do not follow any form of "standard" color sequence. If the pads had a number printed on the surface, then it would be super simple to put them back in order. Another way to help with this would be to provide a more durable color guide, such as a small laminated card the size of a pad, or a credit card, or a sticker you can apply to your workbench or somewhere nearby. The most universally useful color standard I have to reference is this: Blue, Orange, Green, Brown, Slate(grey), White, Red, Black, Yellow, Violet, Rose(pink), Aqua. For those of you who recognize, yes that is a technology cabling standard sequence, but it is immensely valuable, and works for much more than technology. And the more universal we can get, the easier it is for everyone to adopt! If the pads were colored like that, then it would be super easy to put them back in order if needed without a guide at all. Standards exist for a reason, more people and processes need to use them! So... they do a great job, but they just need a little extra tweaking to reach that "perfect" 5 star rating.

Good item. I’ve purchased a few of these to repair the tip on Vogel Wands.

I bought this to fix a poor refinishing job done after a structural repair to a Martin guitar. I hesitated to buy it because of some of the negative comments, but I was really bothered by the bad job done on the finish. Here’s what I found: 1. It is true that the grit doesn’t match sandpaper grit, however this is stated clearly in the instruction sheet that came with the pads. They state: “the 1500 is slightly coursers than a common 600 grit sandpaper.” 2. The color of the pads matched the key in the included instruction sheet. They were also stacked in order of grit, so if I were color blind, I should be OK as long as I kept them in order as I took them out of the resealable plastic envelope. How I used them: I used them wet with a half pint water and a drop of dishwashing detergent as the wetting agent. I removed the high spots and runs left in the finish with the 1500. 1500 did not wear through the lacquer finish on the guitar. I used circular motions. After the finish felt smooth and level, I just went one level at a time rubbing with a wet pad and wiping with a microfiber cloth to check the look. I went all the way to 12000 because this guitar has a high gloss finish. I finished by wiping the surface with Gibson guitar polish and I had a shine that matched the original finish. Unfortunately the lacquer used in the repair doesn’t perfectly match the factory finish, but is on the lower bout and you can no longer tell unless you get up close that the imperfection is anything other than the natural grain of the wood. I am quite happy that I finally tried these pads.

I use these for my fountain pens. I was able to grind the nib from fine to italic. I first used a dremel then fine tuned it with these little pads and a few drops of water. (The water was drying by the time I took the video) I love how it turned out. It’s nice to have various levels of roughness to smooth everything out- great value. I also like the chart/color coding for the levels. I think they’ll last me a long time. The size and colors are perfect. Seems like they’re versatile for other projects too. Highly recommend.

I use these to remove scuffs on watch faces. Just start with the lowest grit until you can't tell where the scuff was, then work your way up to the highest grit until it's shiny again. Adding a little water will make it shinier. You can also tune scratchy fountain pen nibs with this, or grind nibs to a bigger nib size.